Gordon Biersch is the new brewer in town
Photo caption: This is Dan Gordon, one of the founding partners of Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurants. He came to Myrtle Beach on March 31 for a day of media interviews before the company's 26th store opens on March 3.
Ingredients first
Dan Gordon had nothing to do with selecting Myrtle Beach as the 26th Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant, and Monday he made his first-ever trip to the Grand Strand.
But he knew he would dine well while in town.
Gordon is one of the founding partners of the brew pub chain, and is extremely interested in ingredients. Starting with premium ingredients, the master brewer says, is what makes his beer and the brew pubs' menus excellent.
Gordon learned how ingredients affect enjoyment at an early age. He started cooking at 9, he says, when he learned how to make Hollandaise.
"I'd watch Graham Kerr, The Galloping Gourmet, on TV," he said at 9 a.m. Monday during the first media interview in a day scheduled with nine such interviews.
Gordon proved so handy in the kitchen his parents encouraged him to prepare the food for their dinner parties. At age 14 he handled the food at his parents' friends' parties and launched a catering business.
Eventually he went to college at Berkeley and pursued a resource economics degree. But while he was an exchange student in Germany, he learned about a brewing engineering school over there. He was intrigued with the idea of brewing beer as a career; it was an appealing scientific - and fun - version of cooking. After three years of classwork there, he completed a two-year thesis on yeast physiology where he cataloged yeast strains and their impacts on beer flavors.
Before even graduating he bought his first brewing machinery.
In 1987, right after completing the five years of coursework and becoming the first American in 50 years to graduate from the German brewing school, he hooked up with Dean Biersch. In 1988 they established the first Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant in Palo Alto.
Gordon is enthusiastic about the food and drink bearing his name, and he's proud the beers produced on-site at every restaurant are made according to German law. That means only barley, hops, water and yeast are used.
There are four main kinds of German hops - hops so carefully produced under strict rules that they have appellations, meaning their names can't be used on any other hops produced anywhere else in the world.
These hops have distinct, pure and pleasant flavors that Gordon refuses to sully with flavor additions like fruits. Which means you won't find any raspberry wheat or other fruity ales at Gordon Biersch. Or any ales at all.
Nope, Dan Gordon's beers and all the beers brewed in his name are lagers that take six weeks to make. That's six weeks of flavors mingling and maturing, as opposed to a couple of weeks for the ales that some other brew pubs make, he says.
So during this six-week process, Gordon's brewing recipes achieve different flavors from his tweaking those four ingredients.
There's Golden Export, a classic German beer garden brew that's moderately hopped and has a 5.2 percent alcohol content. His Czech Lager is a robustly hopped Pilsner, while the Marzen (which means "bitter March̶ 
uses a darker roasted malt to produce a dark brown
Lager with 6 percent alcohol content.
The Marzen has nearly double the bitterness of Golden Export and Czech Lager, making it a favorite of brewers. Brewers traditionally prefer bitter beers, Gordon says.
An even darker beer is the Schwarzbier, which means "black beer." But it's a "light bodied dark beer." Then there's Maibock. The name refers to a male goat, which denotes strength, but this traditional springtime bock actually has a smooth taste.
Beer drinkers still pouting over the lack of raspberry wheat should try the Hefeweizen. It has a light and fresh taste - almost a sparkling wine taste. The flavor is startling, and Gordon's eyes twinkle as he watches a first-time taster's surprised reaction.
"Banana-bubblegum-citrus-clove," he says.
A second sip confirms that, and as unmatched as those flavors sound, they work together.
Confident that the beer has a place of honor in his guest's mind, Dan Gordon asks a server to bring out several dishes for tasting.
"Here, try the Garlic Fries," he says. "I developed those for my [college] roommate. He was from Belgium, in the Netherlands, and they're freaks on French fries. And I'm a garlic freak. I grew up near Gilroy, Calif., the Garlic Capital of the World."
If you like garlic, you'd love them - they're intensely flavored. And that's a trademark of the Gordon Biersch menu - no bland wimpy food is allowed here. The Southwest Egg Rolls are properly spicy, and the Cajun Pasta has a perfect blend of heat with Andouille sausage and seasoned grilled chicken and shrimp.
The Pulled Pork Sandwich is a Northern type of tomato-based barbecue, and the meat is sweetly infused with the flavor of Marzen beer because it's braised in beer-laced barbecue sauce. The Ribeye Steak is tender and flavorful on its own, but enhanced with the tang of a chunk of gorgonzola cheese melting on top. Seafood Cobb Salad is lively with Miso or Marzen Vinaigrette.
It's all designed to go with beer. Even the Warm Apple Bread Pudding, made with Granny Smith apples and brioche bread that's drizzled with whiskey caramel sauce and topped with a scoop of Edy's vanilla ice cream, would go great with a glass of beer.
Dan Gordon is still talking about ingredients.
"Did you try those garlic mashed potatoes," he asks? "Be sure and try those. We also work with taro. Have you ever seen a taro?"
He asks a server to bring out a taro root, which looks like a giant hairy blend between a turnip and a potato. With maybe a little Jerusalem artichoke thrown in.
"It's a root, a starch," he explains. "You can make it boiled, mashed. Infuse it into dishes. Taro chips are great. They use it in Polynesia. We have a restaurant in Hawaii, and some of our dishes are influenced by that chef."
Gordon comments the company has four new restaurants opening this spring, and that he is headed to Taiwan for the next opening. "How much larger is the chain going to get?" his guest wonders.
"As long as we keep a handle on our quality, I don't care how large we get," he says.
